ld computers are a
precious metal mine. That’s right—gold,
platinum, silver—just to start with. Finishing up the rear, the other
metals
are palladium, rhodium, and tantalum. What is going on here? You threw
away a
computer. Seven pounds of gold computer boards equal one ounce of gold.
Larger
dinosaur mainframes have upward of one pound
of gold boards. Let’s see: 12 troy ounces times $450 per ounce is
$5400. Not
bad in my opinion for a $1 investment.

“What are you talking
about?” you say. “Am I missing something
here?” you ask.

Well, you see knowledge
is power. At government auctions, it
is literally a gold mine giveaway. Sound easy? It is. Some of the
mainframes
weigh as much as 1400 lbs. The government has fork lifts to load your
purchase
for you, but be careful when you try to unload it at your destination!
I
remember a gentleman who hooked one up to a tree and tried to drive his
truck
out from under it. He pulled the back half of his truck off the frame.

Okay. After safely
unloading your purchase, it is time to
“demanufacture” it. First of all, check out the components that are
most
valuable as spare parts. This includes the memory, integrated circuits
(ICs),
CD-ROM drives, central processing units (CPUs), and hard drives. A hard
drive
from an IBM mainframe weighs 120 lbs. and has 80 megabytes of hard
drive space.
It’s worth $1000 to the right person. A reel-to-reel motor can be used
as a
wind-driven generator.

Let’s
say that no
components work. What are they worth as
scrap? Metals include aluminum at 50 cents a pound, copper wire at
40
cents a pound, and iron at 2 cents a pound—chump change! Platinum is
approximately $10,000 a pound. Palladium is about $3000 a pound. You
get the picture.
So—how do you extract the precious metals from the computer?

Take gold for instance.
One part nitric acid and three parts
hydrochloric acid is aqua regia, also known as “royal water.” It
literally
dissolves the gold off the plastic board. After using the aqua regia to
dissolve the gold, neutralize the acids. Then add water and create a
vacuum to
pull the neutralized solution into a glass tube with a filter. The gold
is in
solution and passes through the filter. The particles caught in the
filter are
the other metals. Decant the gold solution into a steel pan, add sodium
chloride, and heat the mixture to 400°F to dry. At this point, the
mixture
looks like brown dirt. Flux the entire interior of your crucible, add
the gold,
and flux the top of the gold. Melt it in a smelter at approximately
2100°F.
Pour the results into a mold, and check out your 24 carat ingot
after it
cools. Do NOTtry this at home. The fumes
can kill!

A second trick of the
trade is to make an amalgam of mercury
and gold. When mixed together, they become a paste. Cut a potato in
half, and drill
a hole in one of the two potato halves. Leave about an inch of potato
on all
sides and the bottom. Put the paste into the hole. Reassemble the
potato and
wire it together with copper wire. Put the potato and paste in aluminum
foil
and set it on a campfire for a few hours. The end result is clean
mercury and a
cube of gold. The mercury is easily retrieved by poking a hole in the
potato
and allowing the mercury to drain into a container. I can’t take credit
for
this method—it was developed in 1849 during the California gold rush.

A third way is to grind
the computer boards into a powder,
flux the crucible, place the powder inside, fire up the smelter until
the
material becomes a liquid, and pour it into a mold. This method
produces a
“dory bar.” Unless you have pure gold boards (rare), the mixture is a
combination of precious metals and will have to be assayed. In this
situation,
plan to divert enough B.B.s from the pour to take to your assayer for
analysis.
They pay on the percentage of precious metals.

Another use I have found
for old computers is their use on
movie sets. Last year I rented some main frames to a movie called Mr. Hell. I was paid to move the main
frames and then to set them up for a lab. Rental was by the week, and I
collected a bonus for being on the crew. This has opened up a whole new
business for me. Need a computer for a commercial?